Entries in WWII
(4)

iStockphoto/Thinktock(NORFOLK, England) -- The parents of a 7-year-old boy who was given a metal detector for Christmas may be regretting their choice of gift after he found a World War II "practice bomb" the first time he used it.

Sonny Carter found the bomb after sweeping the area on Roydon Common, King's Lynn, with his parents and brother, BBC News reports. The family immediately called emergency personnel when they realized what the device was.

A Royal Air Force (RAF) bomb disposal squad removed the 11.5-pound bomb, which contained no explosives, from the premises, BBC reports.

An RAF spokesperson said, according to BBC, that practice bombs were used to follow the trajectory of a larger bomb, "but at reduced cost and without the damage caused by the normal weapon."

As for Sonny, he says he hopes to find treasure next time around instead of a bomb.

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg via Getty Images(SENDAI, Japan) -- Officials closed one of northern Japan's major airports Monday upon the discovery of an unexploded bomb, believed to be from World War II, near a runway.

Flight arrivals and departures were canceled at Sendai airport while a bomb disposal unit investigated the device, found during construction work. The unit determined the WWII-era bomb had been made in the U.S.

BBC News reports the airport, now under construction for repairs after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, had operated as a Japanese military flight school during the war.

Sendai police officials are considering evacuating nearby homes as the disposal unit decides how to remove the ordinance, BBC reports.

Photodisc/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- An American company has made what is being called the heaviest and deepest recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck.

The Tampa, Fla.-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. announced Wednesday that it had recovered 48 tons of silver bullion from the SS Gairsoppa, a sunken British cargo ship three miles below the surface of the waters off the coast of Ireland. Between the Gairsoppa, torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II, and the SS Mantola, sunk by a German submarine during World War I, Odyssey said in a press release that about 240 tons of silver may be recovered by the end of the operation.

The recovery is being made under a contract awarded by the U.K. government, which will keep 20 percent of the cargo's value, estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. The Gairsoppa became U.K. property after the government paid the owners of the ship an insurance sum of £325,000 in 1941. Records indicate the silver was valued at £600,000 in 1941.

The initial recovery of 48 tons consists of 1,203 silver bars and has been transported to a secure facility in the United Kingdom, according to the company.

"With the shipwreck lying approximately three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, this was a complex operation," Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm said in Odyssey's release.

Odyssey contracted JBR Recovery Ltd., a European silver recovery and precious metal processing company, to assist in refining and monetizing the recovered silver.

The Gairsoppa and Mantola shipwrecks were discovered in 2011, and Odyssey conducted reconnaissance dives at both sites in March and April 2012. Recovery operations began in late May.